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Funny, it seems to me that there was assault and battery AND murder in congress; where is the big crackdown? Amazing how when laws start affecting congresswhores, laws (and interns) seem to dissapear. I thought goverment was by, for, and all about the goddamn people - when did it turn into a service to the highest bidder? Where is equal protection and justice under the law?

"While I'm sympathetic to the young people, they're breaking the law," warned Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. "Until the university or this committee is going to do something about it, we're wasting everyone's time."

First of all Maxine, we don't care if you're 'sympathetic to the young people'. That's crap. If you were, you would work to change the law, rather than pursue a unpopular law.

Maxine, you are sympathetic to the money ($12,500) you recieved from the Entertainment industry, much like your pal. meh.

Congratulations, you're voting for politicians who openly take bribes. Back in my days, they at least did it in secret.

Since you asked, 369 Representatives. They also have 80 Senators for a total of 449 congresscritters. That's 84% of congress.

Just a prediction, Sen. Wyden's reelection fund isn't going to be as deep without the funding from Entertaiment lobby, 84% of their donations in the last election went to Dems, but if they don't play nice, I doubt that will continue. Thank Open Secrets for the info.

Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska (a former conservative radio talk show host) owns part interest (a $1M-5M dollar investment) in The Macarthy Group, which owns a company called "Election Systems & Software". Sen. Hagel was, at one time, the chairman of ES&S. ES&S supplied the voting machines that count approximately 60% of all votes cast in the United States, and they counted all the votes in Hagel's 1996 upset and 2002 landslide wins in Nebraska. ES&S is loathe to reveal the source code. Sen. Hagel neglected to disclose his interest in ES&S on his FEC Personal Disclosure statements, claiming that his interest in The Macarthy Group (a privately held banking company) was exempt as an "exempted investment fund" (a rule which exempts candidates from disclosing their mutual fund holdings). Hagel's financial disclosures (or lack thereof) from 1996-2002 can be found here. Also interesting, in 1996 Hagel became the first Republican to win a Senate seat in Nebraska in 24 years to win a Senate seat helped in part by an unprecendented show of support by the black community who had never before voted republican.

RoadRunner Is not AOL.

However, it is sold by a company whose stock symbol is AOL. Should I have written AOL instead of AOL?

Just like Windows 2000 is not Windows ME, or SQL Server isn't Access 2000.

Microsoft doesn't sell a product called "MSFT" though.

Dislike for AOL is almost exclusively based on interface or user intellect.

Either that, or the money that Time Warner poured into the Bono Act and the DMCA.

Money, however, is negative--it's corrupting the body politic. Even though money might be the most self-conflicting force in politics today, there are too many loopholes in this McCain-Feingold bill. All these lobbyists in town who are callous to what the bill stands for are going to exploit it. They'll turn to state parties and special interest groups and the money will keep pouring in. It's a tragedy.

JV: At all costs, the government should stay out of censorship, except in war. When soldiers lives may be at stake, I think you can. Vietnam is the only war we've ever fought in the history of our country, without censorship. But in any other arena, I'm totally opposed to censorship in any form. I'm a great believer and defender of the First Amendment.

JV: But you've already got a DVD. It lasts forever. It never wears out. In the digital world, we don't need back-ups, because a digital copy never wears out. It is timeless.

1. DVD cds and records can become scratched over time and therefore unplayable.
2. All digital media can become broken and do actually degrade over time through not necessarily from "routine" use.
3. All digital media and digital files can be lost necessitating a backup. This loss can be due to losing wither the physical device or the file on a hdd. Who hasn't accidentally typed rm at least once, or discovered that their kid decided to experiment with magnetism or the "empty recycle bin" command.
4. Hard disc drives can fail.
5. Standards can change making old formats incompatible.
6. etc.

If anyone can do it under the rubric of fair use, how can we protect the artists?

Today, it's illegal to copy a videocassette. No one has a fair use to copy a videocassette. If you lose it, you get another one, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Today, it's illegal to copy a videocassette. No one has a fair use to copy a videocassette. If you lose it, you get another one, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's what people have been doing for generations.

JV: What is fair use? Fair use is not a law. There's nothing in law.

Jack Valenti: I wasn't opposed to the VCR. The MPAA tried to establish by law that the VCR was infringing on copyright. Then we would go to the Congress and get a copyright royalty fee put on all blank videocassettes and that would go back to the creators [to compensate for videocassette piracy].

I predicted great piracy. We now lose $3.5 billion a year in videocassette analog piracy. It was a 5-4 Supreme Court decision that determined VCRs were not infringing, which I regret. As a result, we never got the copyright royalty fee, but everything I predicted came true.

• The trade imbalance with Japan would be deeply effected as a result: "We are going to bleed and bleed and hemorrhage, unless this Congress at least protects one industry that is able to retrieve a surplus balance of trade and whose total future depends on its protection from the savagery and the ravages of this machine. "
• Producers would get less for their films on the air and less revenues will be availible to networks and producers.
• That commercial skipping would strip away the reasons for free television.
• That the eceonomic benefits of recording movies from tv would reduce the need or desire for people to attend movies in the theatres, buy prerecorded tapes, or rent prerecorded tapes. He did not specifically predict that the desire would be killed just lessened.
• That the inevitable reduction in films availible in the theatrees and on TV (due to the rise of VCRs) will adversely impact "the less-affluent, the disadvantaged people pressed against the wall, out of work, who can't afford these expensive machines, and free television to the sick and the old and the poor will remain the primary source of home entertainment. "
• "substantial portions of any fees will be borne by manufacturers and retailers rather than passed on to the consumer."
• "The audio business today is where the video business is going to be 4, 5, 6 years from now. By that time, Mr. Railsback, it is going to be too late. You can't salvage the business then. " I am not so sure about this one but he seems to be referencing the fact that as of 1982 the music industry had utterly and irrevocably collapsed.

"plus the people on fast connections in universities, making it so easy to bring down a movie in minutes..."

Although this isn't in his article but in the testimony above I feel it should be commented on too:

"I want to go on record as saying that the motion picture industry, and I hope I am including all of those who are allied with me today, we are free traders. We do not believe in duties and import quotas."

Final quotes from Jack:

"One final point, Mr. Chairman, and then I am through and I have taken more time than I should have, but I am so fascinated by what I am saying..."

"They have more than 40,000 artists and they have people who poll and spot check the logs of radio stations and they make allocations of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of musical recordings and they have done it with almost no dissention from the ranks because they have gotten expertise in it and everybody trusts their judgment..."

Money, however, is negative--it's corrupting the body politic. Even though money might be the most self-conflicting force in politics today, there are too many loopholes in this McCain-Feingold bill. All these lobbyists in town who are callous to what the bill stands for are going to exploit it. They'll turn to state parties and special interest groups and the money will keep pouring in. It's a tragedy.

JV: At all costs, the government should stay out of censorship, except in war. When soldiers lives may be at stake, I think you can. Vietnam is the only war we've ever fought in the history of our country, without censorship. But in any other arena, I'm totally opposed to censorship in any form. I'm a great believer and defender of the First Amendment.

JV: But you've already got a DVD. It lasts forever. It never wears out. In the digital world, we don't need back-ups, because a digital copy never wears out. It is timeless.

1. DVD cds and records can become scratched over time and therefore unplayable.
2. All digital media can become broken and do actually degrade over time through not necessarily from "routine" use.
3. All digital media and digital files can be lost necessitating a backup. This loss can be due to losing wither the physical device or the file on a hdd. Who hasn't accidentally typed rm at least once, or discovered that their kid decided to experiment with magnetism or the "empty recycle bin" command.
4. Hard disc drives can fail.
5. Standards can change making old formats incompatible.
6. etc.

If anyone can do it under the rubric of fair use, how can we protect the artists?

Today, it's illegal to copy a videocassette. No one has a fair use to copy a videocassette. If you lose it, you get another one, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Today, it's illegal to copy a videocassette. No one has a fair use to copy a videocassette. If you lose it, you get another one, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's what people have been doing for generations.

JV: What is fair use? Fair use is not a law. There's nothing in law.

Jack Valenti: I wasn't opposed to the VCR. The MPAA tried to establish by law that the VCR was infringing on copyright. Then we would go to the Congress and get a copyright royalty fee put on all blank videocassettes and that would go back to the creators [to compensate for videocassette piracy].

I predicted great piracy. We now lose $3.5 billion a year in videocassette analog piracy. It was a 5-4 Supreme Court decision that determined VCRs were not infringing, which I regret. As a result, we never got the copyright royalty fee, but everything I predicted came true.

• The trade imbalance with Japan would be deeply effected as a result: "We are going to bleed and bleed and hemorrhage, unless this Congress at least protects one industry that is able to retrieve a surplus balance of trade and whose total future depends on its protection from the savagery and the ravages of this machine. "
• Producers would get less for their films on the air and less revenues will be availible to networks and producers.
• That commercial skipping would strip away the reasons for free television.
• That the eceonomic benefits of recording movies from tv would reduce the need or desire for people to attend movies in the theatres, buy prerecorded tapes, or rent prerecorded tapes. He did not specifically predict that the desire would be killed just lessened.
• That the inevitable reduction in films availible in the theatrees and on TV (due to the rise of VCRs) will adversely impact "the less-affluent, the disadvantaged people pressed against the wall, out of work, who can't afford these expensive machines, and free television to the sick and the old and the poor will remain the primary source of home entertainment. "
• "substantial portions of any fees will be borne by manufacturers and retailers rather than passed on to the consumer."
• "The audio business today is where the video business is going to be 4, 5, 6 years from now. By that time, Mr. Railsback, it is going to be too late. You can't salvage the business then. " I am not so sure about this one but he seems to be referencing the fact that as of 1982 the music industry had utterly and irrevocably collapsed.

"plus the people on fast connections in universities, making it so easy to bring down a movie in minutes..."

Although this isn't in his article but in the testimony above I feel it should be commented on too:

"I want to go on record as saying that the motion picture industry, and I hope I am including all of those who are allied with me today, we are free traders. We do not believe in duties and import quotas."

Final quotes from Jack:

"One final point, Mr. Chairman, and then I am through and I have taken more time than I should have, but I am so fascinated by what I am saying..."

"They have more than 40,000 artists and they have people who poll and spot check the logs of radio stations and they make allocations of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of musical recordings and they have done it with almost no dissention from the ranks because they have gotten expertise in it and everybody trusts their judgment..."

Money, however, is negative--it's corrupting the body politic. Even though money might be the most self-conflicting force in politics today, there are too many loopholes in this McCain-Feingold bill. All these lobbyists in town who are callous to what the bill stands for are going to exploit it. They'll turn to state parties and special interest groups and the money will keep pouring in. It's a tragedy.

JV: At all costs, the government should stay out of censorship, except in war. When soldiers lives may be at stake, I think you can. Vietnam is the only war we've ever fought in the history of our country, without censorship. But in any other arena, I'm totally opposed to censorship in any form. I'm a great believer and defender of the First Amendment.

JV: But you've already got a DVD. It lasts forever. It never wears out. In the digital world, we don't need back-ups, because a digital copy never wears out. It is timeless.

1. DVD cds and records can become scratched over time and therefore unplayable.
2. All digital media can become broken and do actually degrade over time through not necessarily from "routine" use.
3. All digital media and digital files can be lost necessitating a backup. This loss can be due to losing wither the physical device or the file on a hdd. Who hasn't accidentally typed rm at least once, or discovered that their kid decided to experiment with magnetism or the "empty recycle bin" command.
4. Hard disc drives can fail.
5. Standards can change making old formats incompatible.
6. etc.

If anyone can do it under the rubric of fair use, how can we protect the artists?

Today, it's illegal to copy a videocassette. No one has a fair use to copy a videocassette. If you lose it, you get another one, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Today, it's illegal to copy a videocassette. No one has a fair use to copy a videocassette. If you lose it, you get another one, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's what people have been doing for generations.

JV: What is fair use? Fair use is not a law. There's nothing in law.

Jack Valenti: I wasn't opposed to the VCR. The MPAA tried to establish by law that the VCR was infringing on copyright. Then we would go to the Congress and get a copyright royalty fee put on all blank videocassettes and that would go back to the creators [to compensate for videocassette piracy].

I predicted great piracy. We now lose $3.5 billion a year in videocassette analog piracy. It was a 5-4 Supreme Court decision that determined VCRs were not infringing, which I regret. As a result, we never got the copyright royalty fee, but everything I predicted came true.

• The trade imbalance with Japan would be deeply effected as a result: "We are going to bleed and bleed and hemorrhage, unless this Congress at least protects one industry that is able to retrieve a surplus balance of trade and whose total future depends on its protection from the savagery and the ravages of this machine. "
• Producers would get less for their films on the air and less revenues will be availible to networks and producers.
• That commercial skipping would strip away the reasons for free television.
• That the eceonomic benefits of recording movies from tv would reduce the need or desire for people to attend movies in the theatres, buy prerecorded tapes, or rent prerecorded tapes. He did not specifically predict that the desire would be killed just lessened.
• That the inevitable reduction in films availible in the theatrees and on TV (due to the rise of VCRs) will adversely impact "the less-affluent, the disadvantaged people pressed against the wall, out of work, who can't afford these expensive machines, and free television to the sick and the old and the poor will remain the primary source of home entertainment. "
• "substantial portions of any fees will be borne by manufacturers and retailers rather than passed on to the consumer."
• "The audio business today is where the video business is going to be 4, 5, 6 years from now. By that time, Mr. Railsback, it is going to be too late. You can't salvage the business then. " I am not so sure about this one but he seems to be referencing the fact that as of 1982 the music industry had utterly and irrevocably collapsed.

"plus the people on fast connections in universities, making it so easy to bring down a movie in minutes..."

Although this isn't in his article but in the testimony above I feel it should be commented on too:

"I want to go on record as saying that the motion picture industry, and I hope I am including all of those who are allied with me today, we are free traders. We do not believe in duties and import quotas."

Final quotes from Jack:

"One final point, Mr. Chairman, and then I am through and I have taken more time than I should have, but I am so fascinated by what I am saying..."

"They have more than 40,000 artists and they have people who poll and spot check the logs of radio stations and they make allocations of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of musical recordings and they have done it with almost no dissention from the ranks because they have gotten expertise in it and everybody trusts their judgment..."

Money, however, is negative--it's corrupting the body politic. Even though money might be the most self-conflicting force in politics today, there are too many loopholes in this McCain-Feingold bill. All these lobbyists in town who are callous to what the bill stands for are going to exploit it. They'll turn to state parties and special interest groups and the money will keep pouring in. It's a tragedy.

JV: At all costs, the government should stay out of censorship, except in war. When soldiers lives may be at stake, I think you can. Vietnam is the only war we've ever fought in the history of our country, without censorship. But in any other arena, I'm totally opposed to censorship in any form. I'm a great believer and defender of the First Amendment.

JV: But you've already got a DVD. It lasts forever. It never wears out. In the digital world, we don't need back-ups, because a digital copy never wears out. It is timeless.

1. DVD cds and records can become scratched over time and therefore unplayable.
2. All digital media can become broken and do actually degrade over time through not necessarily from "routine" use.
3. All digital media and digital files can be lost necessitating a backup. This loss can be due to losing wither the physical device or the file on a hdd. Who hasn't accidentally typed rm at least once, or discovered that their kid decided to experiment with magnetism or the "empty recycle bin" command.
4. Hard disc drives can fail.
5. Standards can change making old formats incompatible.
6. etc.

If anyone can do it under the rubric of fair use, how can we protect the artists?

Today, it's illegal to copy a videocassette. No one has a fair use to copy a videocassette. If you lose it, you get another one, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Today, it's illegal to copy a videocassette. No one has a fair use to copy a videocassette. If you lose it, you get another one, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's what people have been doing for generations.

JV: What is fair use? Fair use is not a law. There's nothing in law.

Jack Valenti: I wasn't opposed to the VCR. The MPAA tried to establish by law that the VCR was infringing on copyright. Then we would go to the Congress and get a copyright royalty fee put on all blank videocassettes and that would go back to the creators [to compensate for videocassette piracy].

I predicted great piracy. We now lose $3.5 billion a year in videocassette analog piracy. It was a 5-4 Supreme Court decision that determined VCRs were not infringing, which I regret. As a result, we never got the copyright royalty fee, but everything I predicted came true.

• The trade imbalance with Japan would be deeply effected as a result: "We are going to bleed and bleed and hemorrhage, unless this Congress at least protects one industry that is able to retrieve a surplus balance of trade and whose total future depends on its protection from the savagery and the ravages of this machine. "
• Producers would get less for their films on the air and less revenues will be availible to networks and producers.
• That commercial skipping would strip away the reasons for free television.
• That the eceonomic benefits of recording movies from tv would reduce the need or desire for people to attend movies in the theatres, buy prerecorded tapes, or rent prerecorded tapes. He did not specifically predict that the desire would be killed just lessened.
• That the inevitable reduction in films availible in the theatrees and on TV (due to the rise of VCRs) will adversely impact "the less-affluent, the disadvantaged people pressed against the wall, out of work, who can't afford these expensive machines, and free television to the sick and the old and the poor will remain the primary source of home entertainment. "
• "substantial portions of any fees will be borne by manufacturers and retailers rather than passed on to the consumer."
• "The audio business today is where the video business is going to be 4, 5, 6 years from now. By that time, Mr. Railsback, it is going to be too late. You can't salvage the business then. " I am not so sure about this one but he seems to be referencing the fact that as of 1982 the music industry had utterly and irrevocably collapsed.

"plus the people on fast connections in universities, making it so easy to bring down a movie in minutes..."

Although this isn't in his article but in the testimony above I feel it should be commented on too:

"I want to go on record as saying that the motion picture industry, and I hope I am including all of those who are allied with me today, we are free traders. We do not believe in duties and import quotas."

Final quotes from Jack:

"One final point, Mr. Chairman, and then I am through and I have taken more time than I should have, but I am so fascinated by what I am saying..."

"They have more than 40,000 artists and they have people who poll and spot check the logs of radio stations and they make allocations of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of musical recordings and they have done it with almost no dissention from the ranks because they have gotten expertise in it and everybody trusts their judgment..."

(let's forego the whole argument about Disney and never-expiring copyrights -- that's a different topic).

If you violate my copyright, then I want you punished. If you think this is unfair of me, then fart in my general direction and don't use my work. I will certainly understand and not be offended in the slightest.

You cannot expect every artist to put their works into the public domain or license them for free distribution.

(let's forego the whole argument about Disney and never-expiring copyrights -- that's a different topic).

If you violate my copyright, then I want you punished. If you think this is unfair of me, then fart in my general direction and don't use my work. I will certainly understand and not be offended in the slightest.

You cannot expect every artist to put their works into the public domain or license them for free distribution.

(let's forego the whole argument about Disney and never-expiring copyrights -- that's a different topic).

If you violate my copyright, then I want you punished. If you think this is unfair of me, then fart in my general direction and don't use my work. I will certainly understand and not be offended in the slightest.

You cannot expect every artist to put their works into the public domain or license them for free distribution.

(let's forego the whole argument about Disney and never-expiring copyrights -- that's a different topic).

If you violate my copyright, then I want you punished. If you think this is unfair of me, then fart in my general direction and don't use my work. I will certainly understand and not be offended in the slightest.

You cannot expect every artist to put their works into the public domain or license them for free distribution.

The media has given generously to both parties. Let's look at campaign donations from last year:

In the House, the media industry donated money to 178 Democrats and 183 Republicans; accounting for 83% of all House members. The Democrats got an average of $11,734 each, the Republicans averaged $10,040 each.

In the Senate, the media industry donated money to 43 Democrats and 37 Republicans; accounting for 80% of all Senators. The Democrats sold out for an average of $40,369 each, while the Republicans whored themselves out for a measly $14,555 each.

and with more-expensive-than-money free propaganda that isn't touched by "campaign finance reform" laws.

Let me clue you in on something, when the media tells you they have a liberal bias, they are telling you to vote Republican. If they wanted you to vote Democratic, they would quote a Liberal who claims the media has a conservative bias.

But really, the media doesn't have a liberal or conservative bias. They have a "this politician is good for our bottom line" bias. Notice they never favor Libertarians, Greens, the Natural Law Party, the Reform Party, or any other third party. They are quite content telling people to choose between two parties, both of whom the media supports.

As for the various anti-freedom copyright bills, every single one of them was sponsored by both Democrats and Republicans.

Bzzt, wrong, Ms. Rosen is more in line with them democrats^WHollywood Liberals than the GOP. Check out this data from opensecrets.org to see who the real enemy is. Its the liberals who really want to strip you of your money and freedom, the Constitution could give a rats ass about your DVD collection or your religon, we just need lawmakers that follow it.

Bzzt, wrong, Ms. Rosen is more in line with them democrats^WHollywood Liberals than the GOP. Check out this data from opensecrets.org to see who the real enemy is. Its the liberals who really want to strip you of your money and freedom, the Constitution could give a rats ass about your DVD collection or your religon, we just need lawmakers that follow it.

If they are Republican/independent/other, point out this page on opensecrets.org. The jist of it is that the entertainment industry dropped 84% of their funding to Democrats for the last election cycle. The enemy is large, slow, and easily defined here, you just need to point the ones with the guns in the general direction of their enemies. If you support the repeal of this measure and others, vote and fund a less braindead canidate, regardless of affiliation.

If they are Republican/independent/other, point out this page on opensecrets.org. The jist of it is that the entertainment industry dropped 84% of their funding to Democrats for the last election cycle. The enemy is large, slow, and easily defined here, you just need to point the ones with the guns in the general direction of their enemies. If you support the repeal of this measure and others, vote and fund a less braindead canidate, regardless of affiliation.

A more accurate way to say this is that Representative Tauzin (R - BellSouth) wanted to check with his loyal constituents before allowing any bill that would affect them to move forward.

It's a safe bet that Tauzin negotiated some favors in exchange for dropping his hold. Be prepared for this year's summer blockbuster: Tauzin-Dingell 2: Reign of the ILECs.

A more accurate way to say this is that Representative Tauzin (R - BellSouth) wanted to check with his loyal constituents before allowing any bill that would affect them to move forward.

It's a safe bet that Tauzin negotiated some favors in exchange for dropping his hold. Be prepared for this year's summer blockbuster: Tauzin-Dingell 2: Reign of the ILECs.

Early American charters were created literally by the people, for the people as a legal convenience. Corporations were "artificial, invisible, intangible," mere financial tools. They were chartered by individual states, not the federal government, which meant they could be kept under close local scrutiny. They were automatically dissolved if they engaged in activities that violated their charter. Limits were placed on how big and powerful companies could become. Even railroad magnate J. P. Morgan, the consummate capitalist, understood that corporations must never become so big that they "inhibit freedom to the point where efficiency [is] endangered."

The two hundred or so corporations operating in the US by the year 1800 were each kept on fairly short leashes. They weren't allowed to participate in the political process. They couldn't buy stock in other corporations. And if one of them acted improperly, the consequences were severe. In 1832, President Andrew Jackson vetoed a motion to extend the charter of the corrupt and tyrannical Second Bank of the United States, and was widely applauded for doing so. That same year the state of Pennsylvania revoked the charters of ten banks for operating contrary to the public interest. Even the enormous industry trusts, formed to protect member corporations from external competitors and provide barriers to entry, eventually proved no match for the state. By the mid-1800s, antitrust legislation was widely in place.

Tauzin W J 'Billy' U S Congressman
426 Lafayette St
Houma, LA 70360
985-876-3033

Perhaps if he took the time to ask each and every telemarketer to put him on their 'do not call' list, he may have a change of heart.

Though maybe he'd take the easy road and call his friends at BellSouth that donated $16,250 to him. I bet they have a 'do not call' list that doesn't take a year to get up and running...

Of course signing someone else up for telemarketing is presumably some sort of electronic or mail fraud, so of course I'm not suggesting that anyone actually do this. This post is purely for entertainment purposes.

This story would sound reasonable, except that there is another story in which the facts are easier to check: Telephone Price Wars Called Off. The story says that the long distance companies are losing money and need to raise their rates. I think the truth is that providing long-distance services has become cheaper, and they are only trying to squeeze the customers. Why do I think that? Look at BigZoo. That company is able to make a profit at 2.9 cents per minute and 75 cents per month.

If you begin to doubt the "telephone companies are poor" story, then it is likely that you will doubt the "Billy Tauzin is only thinking of how to manage this best" story.

Here is a southern Repbulican man who, even though he is an adult, is still called by the diminutive name "Billy". Is is possible that he would take $16,250 to slow the passage of extremely popular legislation while he tries to stop it? Has such a thing ever happened before? Or, is it true that Billy is taking an intellectual interest in the bill?

Did this whole idea of having a do-not-call list jump into reality last week? No, it has been around for a long time. Billy Tauzin could have "studied" it before.

A lot of newspaper stories are really paid advertisements for a point of view the payers want you to believe.

C'mon, now who really profits from telemarketing? <cough>#2</cough>

It's just a coincidence, people.

If the geek community had something serious enough to be listed there, we could afford to be a lot calmer about this situation. The geeks never even made a serious attempt to buy Congress.

Check Open Secrets, they break things down by industry. The media industry has a special relationship with politics because politicians have to pay for advertising time. Its huge money for them, $billions. Off the Record is a great report that looks at the media industry and politics.

I sympathize with your multiple victimizations, and happen to fear identity theft a great deal. It's terrible that they don't run these things down, but the governement, especially federal, focuses on high-dollar loss cases first, and underestimates these misery crimes.

Frankly IMHO the liability for identity theft should be squarely on the creditors who extend credit or perhaps gov't agencies that issue ID on insufficient proof of identity. As it is now, credit card companies do not "eat the loss," they pass it on as higher interest rates. Now, if the credit cards companies really sustained the losses, we'd see major pressure on the gov't to do something. Look what their efforts for bankruptcy reform -- because it would increase profits for minimal effort. Being stingier about extending credit to everyone and the family dog would hurt profits.

But I still don't understand "rather than" instead of "also." Mitnick was largely tracked down by a private party, anyway. Prosecuting him was inevitable -- he'd already done time twice before and fled supervised release. It is impossible to say what further damage he might have inflicted, as he appears to have the morals of a small child. And while it is true "we can't easily stop muggings on the street," we definitely can't stop them by declining to prosecute the offenders. Quite the opposite. I'm sure Mitnick's fate, just or unjust, has others very worried about crossing the line and getting caught.

I suspect your definition of negligence is over the top, perhaps not. As I noted, the srticles don't say whether the data was encrypted, though one might infer not. But no amount of a victim's stupidity exonerates the crook. If both are guilty, punish both.

In fact there are more than two parties in the United States of America , but only two are funded by the biggest companies. These companies pay good money to have laws made. See contributions

As long as the DMCA is in effect, you'll never be able to get at a copy of DRM protected media, public domain or not. Breaking the DRM for such "Fair Use" purposes will clearly be considered illegal by the courts.

Phase two would be requiring all digital devices to honor all DRM technology (Fritz is working on that now) and the slow phasing out of players that play unprotected content. End result: Those indie artists who insist on taking a bite of the entertainment pie handily go away because they can't afford the licensing fees for a DRM ID Tag that would allow their content to be played.

Yes, the DMCA is the biggest intellectual property power-grab in history. How did your congressman vote on it? Whose hands are in his pokects?

Microsoft has given a lot of money to the Republican party, so it's safe to assume that Ashcroft won't block this acquisition....

Supposing first that this rumored acquisition is true, it won't be political ties that permit it. Microsoft has given generously to both parties, almost equally.

No. If this deal is allowed, it will be because it wouldn't give Microsoft a monopoly, as Adobe still exists. With the Intuit case, MS Money and Quicken were two products that had a combined lock on 98% of the personal finance products on the market. While Flash is almost pervasive, Adobe exists with SVG and competitors to almost every other product that Macromedia offers.

-- Len

And in other news, Microsoft has also given alot of money to Democrats. Don't make this a political issue when it isn't:

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.asp?ID=D00 0000115&Name=Microsoft+Corp

Overheard by the ghost of Abraham Lincoln said to haunt the halls of the White House in a thick Texas drawl, between fits of laughter:

"Hey, I know how we can make the eighth largest committee contributor*, the Music, Movies and TV Industry, happy and squash the first amendment at the same time! Wait 'till I tell John and Carl!"

* - $13,269,058 to Republicans in 2000 when Bush was "elected". In 2002, the rank was 5, total sum $6,694,592 (remember, no presidential election so the less cash). See Open Secrets Site for details.

Also interesting:
2002 giving by the RIAA PAC: here.
2000: here.
2000 Lobbying funds spent by the RIAA: here.

SIGNATURE REMOVED BY ORDER OF JOHN POINDEXTER following review by MSCoIntelPro2.0 filter running on House Unamerican Affairs servers (McCarthyME.gov).

Overheard by the ghost of Abraham Lincoln said to haunt the halls of the White House in a thick Texas drawl, between fits of laughter:

"Hey, I know how we can make the eighth largest committee contributor*, the Music, Movies and TV Industry, happy and squash the first amendment at the same time! Wait 'till I tell John and Carl!"

* - $13,269,058 to Republicans in 2000 when Bush was "elected". In 2002, the rank was 5, total sum $6,694,592 (remember, no presidential election so the less cash). See Open Secrets Site for details.

Also interesting:
2002 giving by the RIAA PAC: here.
2000: here.
2000 Lobbying funds spent by the RIAA: here.

SIGNATURE REMOVED BY ORDER OF JOHN POINDEXTER following review by MSCoIntelPro2.0 filter running on House Unamerican Affairs servers (McCarthyME.gov).

Overheard by the ghost of Abraham Lincoln said to haunt the halls of the White House in a thick Texas drawl, between fits of laughter:

"Hey, I know how we can make the eighth largest committee contributor*, the Music, Movies and TV Industry, happy and squash the first amendment at the same time! Wait 'till I tell John and Carl!"

* - $13,269,058 to Republicans in 2000 when Bush was "elected". In 2002, the rank was 5, total sum $6,694,592 (remember, no presidential election so the less cash). See Open Secrets Site for details.

Also interesting:
2002 giving by the RIAA PAC: here.
2000: here.
2000 Lobbying funds spent by the RIAA: here.

SIGNATURE REMOVED BY ORDER OF JOHN POINDEXTER following review by MSCoIntelPro2.0 filter running on House Unamerican Affairs servers (McCarthyME.gov).

Overheard by the ghost of Abraham Lincoln said to haunt the halls of the White House in a thick Texas drawl, between fits of laughter:

"Hey, I know how we can make the eighth largest committee contributor*, the Music, Movies and TV Industry, happy and squash the first amendment at the same time! Wait 'till I tell John and Carl!"

* - $13,269,058 to Republicans in 2000 when Bush was "elected". In 2002, the rank was 5, total sum $6,694,592 (remember, no presidential election so the less cash). See Open Secrets Site for details.

Also interesting:
2002 giving by the RIAA PAC: here.
2000: here.
2000 Lobbying funds spent by the RIAA: here.

SIGNATURE REMOVED BY ORDER OF JOHN POINDEXTER following review by MSCoIntelPro2.0 filter running on House Unamerican Affairs servers (McCarthyME.gov).

Electronic Arts won't be the next DisneyCo until EA starts lobbying to the United States Congress for copyright laws that further restrict consumers and other authors and publishers. Look how much money DisneyCo contributed to get the Bono Act passed in a desperate attempt to keep Mickey Mouse locked up.

Following Ben Stein's implied prescription as to the cure to what ails America would do it once and for all. If he'd ever done anything constructive with technology for a living, he might be clued enough to make his perceptions about what makes technological innovation of value. Reading his article makes him wonder what planet he moved to after his job with Nixon quit him. As well as why he returned and why Forbes decided to give him a public forum.

As a casual observer of what makes this country work and what stops it cold, I hereby offer a few suggestions on how we can ruin American competitiveness and innovation in the course of this century.

His suggestions might be worth something if he'd ever gotten closer to real technologists than any article in the financial press could have taken him.

I think the reader will agree with me that we are already far down the road on many of them:

1) Allow schools to fall into useless decay. Do not teach civics or history except to describe America as a hopelessly fascistic, reactionary pit.

He wants schools to leave the Nixon era out of history books? Not that I blame him, he's one of the guilty parties, he was on the Nixon staff. But he isn't important enough to be mentioned by name.

Do not expect students to know the basics of mathematics, chemistry and physics.

A couple of hours ago, I helped an average high school student in an average suburban high school make a model of the sodium atom. In large part, the science textbooks are finally becoming adequate and much better than the ones I used in high school (graduated at mid-term in 1972).

Working closely with the teachers' unions, make sure that you dumb down standards so that children who make the most minimal effort still get by with flying colors. Destroy the knowledge base on which all of mankind's scientific progress has been built by guaranteeing that such learning is confined to only a few, and spread ignorance and complacency among the many. Watch America lose its scientific and competitive edge to other nations that make a comprehensive knowledge base a rule of the society.

We're going to lose our competitive edge to the RIAA/MPAA cartel long before the educational system has time to do what he describes.

While public education is in serious disrepair, the problem (at least in California and other states which are finally enforcing some) isn't standards, it's structure and methods. The standards for high school graduation in a local California school district I reviewed are perfectly adequate. I'm at something of a loss as to how their educational methods are going to accomplish this, from what I've been able to see, the teachers are using homework not to reinforce the classroom instruction given during the school day, but to force parents to provide the instruction the teachers weren't able to provide. The money is probably adequate, but is dissipated in "administrative expenses" having little discernable relationship to classroom instruction.

2) Encourage the making of laws and rules by trial lawyers and sympathetic judges, especially through class actions. Bypass the legislative mechanisms that involve elected representatives and a president. This will stop--or at least greatly slow down--innovation, as corporations and individuals hesitate to explore new ideas for fear of getting punished (or regulated to death) by litigation for any misstep, no matter how slight, in the creation of new products and services. Make sure that lawsuits against drugmakers are especially encouraged so that the companies are afraid to develop new lifesaving drugs, lest they be sued for sums that will bankrupt them. Make trial lawyers and judges, not scientists, responsible for the flow of new products and services.

I'm a hell of a lot more concerned about the unrestrained influence of the lobbyists of the Hollywood content cartel than I am about tort law, which has largely already been reformed in the direction Mr. Stein asks for. The factors that restrain innovation in the pharmaceutical industry are more that companies have found that paying lawyers to build patent portfolios from previous work is more profitable than hiring scientists and engineers.

We're finding that entertainment industry executives are even less safe technology gatekeepers than trial lawyers ever were. If he wants to point a finger, he should look to his own employers.

3) Create a culture that blames the other guy for everything and discourages any form of individual self-restraint or self-control. Promote litigation to punish tobacco companies on the theory that they compel innocent people to smoke. Make it second nature for someone who is overweight to blame the restaurant that served him fries. Encourage a legal process that can kill a drug company for any mistakes in self-medication.

IIRC, the overweight person got his fat ass kicked in court, and he can't name any drug companies that have gone out of business over a patient's fuckups any more than you or I can. However, the evidence is simply inconclusive. I can cite examples where these cases got tossed out of court and cases where the plaintiffs won.

Make it a general rule that anyone with more money than a plaintiff is responsible for anything harmful that a plaintiff does. Promulgate the pitiful joke that Americans are hereby exempt from any responsibility for their own actions--so long as there are deep pockets around to be rifled.

4) Sneer at hard work and thrift. Encourage the belief that all true wealth comes from skillful manipulation and cunning, or from sudden, brilliant and lucky strokes that leave the plodding, ordinary worker and saver in the dust.

Does anyone know of any examples of people who've gotten seriously rich (say, over $100M) solely by hard work and thrift? It's rather telling that Ben doesn't know of any, either. We know this because he didn't cite examples. Hard work only counts when one is doing the right things, and thrift is only a good thing when one economizes on the right things... i.e. don't spend $1K of your investors' money per employee on office furniture in a high tech startup, and DON'T try squeezing nickels when it comes to picking server hardware when your site is already getting 1M hits a day.

Make sure that society's idols are men and women who got rich from being sexy in public

Presumably, he means entertainers. Hmmm... why are we using the badly informed remarks of an entertainer as a basis of public debate?

or through gambling or playing tricks, not from hard work or patience. Make the citizenry permanently envious and bewildered about where real success comes from.

Anybody sufficiently interested in finding out can discover where most individual fortunes came from, including the parts the founders of thse fortunes would really rather we didn't know about. Of course, knowing where wealth comes from doesn't necessarily imply that one can make it even if one has the knowledge and talent to create intellectual capital. Knowing who Ann Winblad is doesn't mean she'll give you the time of day, unless you encounter her through the right "insider" VC community channels.

Hint: If Bill Gates hadn't had substantial family money behind him, would we have ever heard of either him or Microsoft?

5) Hold the managers of corporations to extremely lax standards of conduct and allow them to get off with a slap on the wrist when they betray the trust of shareholders. This will discourage thrift and investment and ensure that Americans will have far less capital to work with than other societies, while simultaneously developing that contempt for law and social standards that is the hallmark of failing nations. Hold the management of labor unions to no ethical standards.

Odd that he got that one almost right. Now why did he personally invest in Enron and Worldcom to begin with?

If he's as well informed as he pretends to be, he'd know that the reason for the spectacular stock swindles perpetrated by Enron, Worldcom, and many other companies was reduced oversight by the SEC, which the Bush Administration insured by gutting the agency's funding. Corporate leaders will cheat if they can get away with it, that's why the SEC was invented in the 1930s. Why is he putting Ben Stein's money into funding the GOP if he really believes there's a problem?

6) While you're at it, discourage respect for law in every possible way. This will dissolve the glue that holds the nation together, and dissuade any long- term thinking. Societies in which the law can be clearly seen to apply to some and not to others are doomed to decay, in terms of innovation and everything else.

No argument here. However, he's a former scriptwriter for Richard Nixon, who left the White House barely in time to avoid public trial for "high crimes and misdemeanors". The GOP is the very center of the cultural imperative that says the law is for everyone except the wealthy. A good argument, but is he really the one to make it?

7) Encourage a mass culture that spits on intelligence and study and instead elevates drug use, coolness through sex and violence, and contempt for school. As children learn to be stupid instead of smart, the national intelligence base needed for innovation will simply vanish into MTV- land.

Still whining about youth culture after all these years. I guess he figures that he fooled the public during the Nixon era with this, (the 1972 Nixon campaign was basically an attack on youth culture) he can still get away with it. He will be happy to know that the current version of youth culture is just as likely to turn out amoral suits to provide the kind of "innovative" business leadership he seems to be looking for as any idealism out of the hippie era.

The PC he presumably typed these grave pronouncements on and the ones we're reading and writing this on are as much a product of the 1960s youth culture as acid rock and love beads. Those of you who are too young to remember this from being there can pick up the history from Hackers by Stephen Levy. Though looking at pictures of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak around when they started Apple should give you the idea. Those of you who are a bit older will remember when I say Whole Earth Catalogue gave Homebrew Computer Club its startup funding. And the world indeed changed as a result.

What will the current participants in the current revision of youth culture come up with in the way of technology? There are more young computer programmers around than in any time in previous history, and most of you are probably here. Isn't it sad that Ben Stein doesn't like your musical tastes?

8) Mock and belittle the family.

Last time I heard, The Osbournes are still the hottest show on TV... the family might not be the one that Ben Stein grew up with and Ozzy Osbourne isn't exactly Ozzie Nelson, but the family actually seems to work.

Provide financial incentives to people willing to live an isolated existence, vulnerable and frightened. This guarantees that men and women of sufficient character to bring about innovation will be psychologically stifled from an early age.

Let's be polite here and figure that he botched this one on the basis that he stopped doing his own income taxes as soon as he could afford to do so, probably in the early 1970s. The rest of us need only flip through our form 1040 booklets to figure out what tax breaks families get that singles aren't eligible for.

9) Develop a suicidal immigration policy that keeps out educated, hardworking men and women from friendly nations and, instead, takes in vast numbers of angry, uneducated immigrants from nations that hate us. This, too, leads to the shrinking of our knowledge base and the eventual disappearance of social cohesion.

He's never heard of H1B and we're supposed to take his pronouncements on how immigration law works seriously? Perhaps Forbes should have gotten Madonna or Eminem to write the article instead. I don't see how they could have done a worse job. Where the hell does he think the casual labor that keeps his yard in good shape comes from, under a cabbage patch?

10) Enact a tax system that encourages class antagonism and punishes saving, while rewarding indebtedness, frivolity and consumption. Tax the fruits of labor many times:

First tax it as income. Then tax it as real or personal property. Then tax it as capital gains. Then tax it again, at a staggeringly high level, at death. This way, Americans are taught that only fools save, and that it is entirely proper for us to have the lowest savings rate in the developed world.

We also have the lowest total tax rate in the developed world once all these layers are added up, and those who invest as companies in technological businesses can pick up an R&D tax credit. If he were qualified to speak on technological innovation, he'd know it.

This will deprive us of much-needed capital for new investment, for innovation and our own personal aspirations. It will compel us to ask foreigners for ever more capital and allow them to own more of America. It will also promote an attitude of carelessness about the future and, once again, encourage disrespect for law.

Tell that to Bill Gates. Fortunes are still being made in America. Though Gates doesn't have much to do with innovation, there are others who've made high-tech fortunes in the system he condemns, and a whole lot of us who'd be happy to give it a try given access to venture capital.

11) Have a socialized medical system that scrimps on badly needed drugs and procedures, resorts to only the cheapest practices and discourages drug companies from developing new drugs by not paying them enough to cover their costs of experimentation, trial and error.

Which country does he think he lives in? The USA has the most expensive medical system in the world on either a per capita basis or in terms of total dollars. Attempts to introduce universal health care have been uniformly squelched by millions of dollars spent by the US health care industry and in particular, insurance companies who would be forced to stop profiting from health care if the US health care system became "socialized".

12) Elevate mysticism, tribalism, shamanism and fundamentalism--and be sure to exclude educated, hardworking men and women--to an equal status with technology in the public mind.

With the exception of the Xtian fundamentalists, all the groups he's whining about are very well represented in technological innovation. Anyone who doesn't quite get this should try googling for:
technopagan VRML

Make sure that, in order to pay proper (and politically correct) respect to all different ethnic groups in America, you act as if science were on an equal footing with voodoo and history with ethnic fable.

If he'd had the guts to go after fundamentalist Christians pushing "Creation Science", I'd agree with him. As far as I know, this is the only significant example of religion overriding science that's going on right now.

My list need not end here.

Would it be uncharitable to suggest that it ended because he'd run out of ideas? Perhaps a few more hours of listening to Rush Limbaugh would have given him some.

But I stopped at a dozen because I realized that this is already, in large measure, the program of so many of our elected representatives. The debauchery of our tort system is already in place, and the rest of the agenda is under way.

The only agendas I see in progress right now are that of restricting civil liberties in the guise of "protecting us from terrorists" and the Hollywood content cartel's anti-tech agenda. Either are as dangerous to America's ability to innovate and compete as the decline of public education. Ben Stein deals with neither. If Ben Stein got paid for this article, Forbes should retract the article and try to get their money back from him.

Ben Stein was practically the only GOP contributor among the ranks of Hollywood entertainers, look him up. (search under individual donors, enter STEIN, BENJAMIN)

Benjamin J. Stein is a lawyer, economist, writer and actor, and host of the game show Win Ben Stein's Money.

If Ben Stein ever devotes a show segment to public policy and has an honest judge score the contestants, he's going to lose a bunch of Ben Stein's money. The guy does have style, but I never realized before reading his article how little he's got to back it up with.

This all sounds bad until you stop and think about the alternative: only people without opinions can donate to political parties. Wouldn't that be ideal...A voter base made entirely of people without intrests. Payoffs are wrong, but I see no problem with individuals or businesses supporting candidates that they agree with politically.
Especially if they are open about it.

You can get more info on this from OpenSecrets.org.

Please take not of who has the most lopsided and largest donations. Notice the movie studios at #1 and #3? Care about fair use at all?

I'm certainly not trying to make the Repubs out to be the good guys, but the Dems aren't going to save you from big money influence.

Real election reform

Why the heck does it still exist?

Because Hollywood/TV/Music industry gave $21,480,772 in soft money during 2002 to keep it there...

Lawyers aint cheap and when the court orders someone to pay for the damages/legal costs, it aint cheap.

Lawyers gave $12,074,762 in soft money during 2002 to make sure these disputes can't be settled without them...

This public service announcement was brought to you by Open Secrets

People who truely believe in free market economies would never let the government regulate technology like this, or sanction a virtual monopoly to the Baby Bells, or give the FCC the powers it has to stifle communications.

That's his call, and if we don't like it we can pick someone else in two years.

That's how it's supposed to work, at least.

The reality is that we're not going to get the option to elect a president who stands for rigorous enforcement of anti-trust laws, because such a candidate would have great difficulty raising money from business interests who aren't particularly fond of such laws.

Of course, probably the only reason we ever saw an anti-trust case brought against Microsoft to begin with was that Gates & co. hadn't wised up to the need to make generous campaign contributions. With $4.6 million in contributions in the 2000 cycle, I'd say they've now figured things out, and the DoJ's antitrust division can now go back to sleep.

Ever heard of the DMCA? CBDTPA? Broadcast Working Group? Those items are part of what that money is going for.

You new here or something? Do a Google search on each of the above search terms and get informed. While flaming you would be more fun, you're more useful to the community if somebody hands you a clue. Go do something with it.

AOL and Verizon.

Considering that Barbara Boxer has taken $40,500 in payoffs from AOL already this year is one indication of why she is pushing this.

George Allen is no better. $26,150 from Verizon and $22,000 buys his support.

Senators take more payoffs than they actually "get it"

AOL and Verizon.

Considering that Barbara Boxer has taken $40,500 in payoffs from AOL already this year is one indication of why she is pushing this.

George Allen is no better. $26,150 from Verizon and $22,000 buys his support.

Senators take more payoffs than they actually "get it"

Yo Grark ranted ...
Committee Meeting, Day 1 9:00am

MS: OpenSource Bad
OS: Microsoft Bad
Japan: Why?

MS&OS: Shit good question.

..... Post commission decision ....

A lawyer is the only kind of hired gun with the ability to legalise murder.

Bad laws cause a lot of legal friction. Legal friction is good for lawyers' business. Who spends the most on elections? Even better- who spent the most on the 2000 election? Lawyers are paying for the best government money can buy. For themselves.

A lawyer is the only kind of hired gun with the ability to legalise murder.

Bad laws cause a lot of legal friction. Legal friction is good for lawyers' business. Who spends the most on elections? Even better- who spent the most on the 2000 election? Lawyers are paying for the best government money can buy. For themselves.

See opensecrets.org for a very nicely organized info on your elected officials. Very informative read. And it is not just to bulk data, but also the data summaries and presentment that really counts.